With hiring rates coming out of law school at an all-time low, and average law school tuition at an all-time high, you would think law students would have plenty to gripe about. But if this article from George Washington University’s student newspaper is to be believed, they obviously don’t. According to The Hatchet, law student groups at GW are spending time pressing a critical issue: laxer drinking regulations on graduate students.
Yep, apparently law students want to make it easier to turn to the bottle once you get to law school. (Hmm … maybe this does have something to do with the bad legal market right now.) They complain that, under current regulations, law students have to (a) register student events where alcohol is served; (b) prohibit open bars; and (c) keep one sober person around for each 20 people gettin’ their drink on. The law student groups argue that the law school is “an adult population[,] so the kind of events that happen are more adult in nature.” (*snicker*) And moreover, “[h]appy hour is an institution in D.C.”
The idea that law students should be treated differently because they are more mature is patently false. I remember arriving at GW and being surprised at how much drinking was going on. In fact, there was probably more drinking in law school than there was at my small undergraduate school in Maine–where for many students there wasn’t anything else to do but drink. I remember carrying a classmate home from a bar review basically on my back from Georgetown because she was too drunk to walk and so drunk no cabbies were willing to pick us up. I remember another time getting a classmate–a different one–into a cab but having to stop every few blocks to let her throw up. Clearly, more than a few were still partying hard. All of this is “training” for a field that sees much higher rates of alcoholism than other industries.
The best argument that law students have going for them is that the undergraduate-oriented regulations could really screw up the character and fitness aspect of their bar applications. The argument goes that a law student could get cited for a “technical” violation (such as a bunch of club members gathering at a bar and getting cited for an unregistered club event) and face disciplinary action from the school. But here’s the deal: (a) there’s no evidence that such technical violations ever really happen, (b) more likely than not, a single drinking citation is not going to prevent an otherwise qualified graduate from being admitted to the bar, and (c) tough noogies. Yeah, I meant that last one. A lot of practicing law involves following “technical” rules for seemingly no real reason and staying clean; law students need to get used to that early.
One law student group leader insists, “We’re adults.” If that’s the case, maybe they should focus more of their energies on important matters (you know, adult things) and less time worrying about the alchy rules.
-Michael
